Miami Herald may have finally hit on the right columnist
Al’s
Loupe Read Spanish Version
Miami
Herald may have finally hit on the right columnist
By
Alvaro F. Fernandez
alfernandez@the-beach.net
After
writing only her fourth column, Myriam Marquez may have inadvertently
responded to at least one of Progreso Weekly’s Max Castro’s
queries of last week regarding the Miami Herald’s new columnist.
This past Sunday she examined some of Rudy Crew’s decisions during
his tenure in South Florida. She does not appear to be favorable of
Miami-Dade’s superintendent of schools. She finishes by asking Crew
to show a little humility and writes, “The superintendent’s
performance isn’t so much the problem.
“It’s
his arrogance.”
Maybe.
But I wonder if she might be calling Crew arrogant based on pride
since he would not respond to her phone calls? Would Ms. Marquez be
willing to admit that Crew is at least steadfast? He does have a
record of standing up for what he believes in. He did it with Rudy
Giuliani in New York under difficult circumstances. And Miami, as we
all know, is not an easy town to play politics in — if you’re not
on the “right” side of the fence. In other words, this guy is no
pushover.
Or
maybe she just agrees with the many Florida politicians (starting
with our former governor — also a Bush) who are willing to dismantle
an educational system for the sake of privatization. In her column
she goes after Crew but barely mentions school board members.
Millions of dollars have disappeared under their watch. Most before
Crew got here.
Arrogant…
possibly. In Miami-Dade, Crew runs the second largest school district
in the nation — more than 350,000 students. And around the country,
he is well respected. Crew has been mentioned as a possible candidate
to take over the job of Secretary of Education under a Barack Obama
presidency.
Consider
this: maybe Rudy Crew is trying to outsmart all his detractors here
in Miami: Push them to get rid of you; collect a severance check of
$700,000 guaranteed by his contract; then in January 2009, head to
Washington, DC, to work under a new president with pockets full.
Sounds like a plan. Has anybody considered the possibility?
‘Vamos’
where?
In
her column she accuses Crew of straining relations with the
Cuban-American community for not wilting under the pressure brought
on by persons who wanted to have books removed from school libraries.
Remember the book? Vamos
a Cuba.
A kids’ book which says boys and girls in Cuba go to school, study
and learn. They are photographed smiling and wearing their “Pioneer”
uniforms with red bandanas. What an affront. Call the censors. Remove
the books immediately. Crew stood up to these people. At the time, I
thought, finally, someone with balls!
Marquez
rails on: “…few outside South Florida’s exile community seem to
care what a painful affront that fact-challenged Vamos
A Cuba
book was to the thousands of former Cuban political prisoners in
South Florida.
“Crew
never seemed to care,” she says.
What
does Vamos
a Cuba
have to do with anything about our current problems with the
educational system? Or is it that Marquez has bought into a system
that places politicking above all else in Miami? Instead of reminding
us of that embarrassing moment in Miami’s near-past, she could have
questioned one of Crew’s principal foils, Board member Renier Diaz
de la Portilla, for example, whose brother, a powerful Florida state
senator, had much to do with the many cutbacks in moneys for schools.
De la Portilla is being challenged by another Cuban American and both
propose fixing Miami’s school woes by making the supervisor’s
position political. Elect the individual, they insist. Can you
imagine? We’d be censoring books right and left…
Or
why didn’t Marquez go after Marco Rubio, the retiring Florida
Speaker of House whose disastrous performance in Tallahassee assured
the educational budget shortfall. Why not criticize the apparent
conflict created when Rubio accepted a cushy $60,000 a year part-time
job at Florida International University (FIU), a university which
lost professors, research centers and eliminated 23 degree programs
because the Rubio-led legislature could not (or would not?) come up
with the money for Florida students?
No,
Marquez did not go after the real bad guys. That was left for a safer
column hidden inside the Metro section written by the americano
Fred Grimm. The front page, that was reserved for Marquez to go after
Crew — for being arrogant.
If
arrogance means standing up to the crooks and ignoramuses we have
here in Miami, then bring me a whole bunch of Rudy Crews, Ms.
Marquez. As for The Miami Herald, I believe they may have finally
found the columnist they’ve been searching for.
